The 2023-24 season is the first in 20 years that doesn’t feature either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo in one of Europe’s major leagues.
Those two names dominated the scoring charts across Europe for almost two entire decades, notching almost a thousand league goals combined and lifting no fewer than 10 European Golden Shoe awards.
But we’ve now arrived at a new era and some familiar names are inevitably dominating the scoring charts. We’ve taken a look at the top 10 goalscorers across Europe’s big five leagues – Ligue 1, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and the Premier League.
Note: if two players are tied on goals, we’ve ordered them by their goals-per-minute ratio.
10. Ollie Watkins – 19 goals
The Aston Villa forward is enjoying an outrageously good season, ith 12 league assists to go alongside his excellent goal tally. That’s the comfortably most assists of any player in this top 10.
Watkins has a genuine shout to be the Premier League Player of the Year. He’s been the main man for Unai Emery’s side as they punch well above their weight to qualify for Champions League qualification.
He’s surely at the front of the queue to lead the line for England if – god forbid – anything happens to Harry Kane before Euro 2024 gets underway.
QUIZ: Can you name the top 50 goalscorers across Europe’s major leagues since 2000?
9. Artem Dovbyk – 16 goals
Top of the La Liga goalscoring charts with 19 goals, Ukraine international Dovbyk has played a massive role in Girona looking well set to finish in Spain’s top four.
The striker also played a key role in Ukraine making it through their play-offs and will be one worth keeping an eye out for at Euro 2024 this summer.
It will be fascinating viewing to see who can win the race to win the Pichichi award for La Liga’s top scorer.
Dovbyk is vying to become the first player outside of Spain’s big three to win the award since Mallorca’s Dani Guiza in 2007-08 – but Robert Lewandowski recently notched a hat-trick to move within three goals of the Girona striker and will back himself to retain the award he claimed last season.
Jude Bellingham, Alexander Sorloth and Ante Budimir are also in the mix.
8. Alexander Isak – 19 goals
The fact that Isak features so highly while starting just 23 matches for Eddie Howe’s Magpies is testament to his lethal finishing ability.
Surely the best No.9 they’ve had since Alan Shearer, Newcastle might be up in the top four had Isak been fit and available all season. He averages a goal every 102 league minutes, which is a ratio only bettered by the elite names at the top echelons of this list.
The Swede has been particularly lethal of late, with nine goals in his last eight Premier League outings.
7. Cole Palmer – 20 goals
There’s no content over Chelsea’s Player of the Year. It’s been a miserable midtable campaign for Mauricio Pochettino’s Blues but Palmer has proven their best signing in a long, long time.
The 21-year-old, in his first season of regular starts, has become the first Chelsea player to score 20 league goals since Eden Hazard in 2018-19.
6. Erling Haaland – 21 goals
The least surprising entry in the top 10, it’s a testament to Haaland’s ridiculously lethal quality that his 21-goal haul comes in a season in which people have questioned him, Roy Keane even going as far as to liken him to a League Two player.
The Norwegian looks a sound bet to retain the Premier League’s Golden Boot again, having raced into the lead in the top scorers’ chart with 21 goals in 27 appearances for Pep Guardiola’s reigning champions.
But unless he does something truly extraordinary in the run-in, it looks as though he’ll be beaten to the Europe-wide award this season. A runner-up placing could still be possible, at least.
READ: The fastest players to reach 50 goals in the Premier League: Haaland obliterates record…
5. Lautaro Martinez – 23 goals
Missing a penalty in Inter’s Champions League elimination to Atletico Madrid appears to have knocked Martinez’s confidence. The Argentinian has gone five successive matches without scoring since then.
But he’d already enjoyed his best-ever goalscoring return of 23 goals in the first two thirds of the Serie A campaign and has played a vital hand in the Nerazzurri reclaiming their Scudetto in rampant style.
4. Lois Openda – 24 goals
RB Leipzig have made shedloads of cash selling off the likes of Josko Gvardiol, Dominik Szoboszlai, Christopher Nkunku and Timo Werner in recent years – and the Bundesliga club continue to churn out lucrative assets.
Belgium international Openda has scored 24 goals in 31 Bundesliga appearances since arriving from Lens last summer.
He cost a considerable €43million, making him Leipzig’s record signing, but you imagine they’ll still be flipping him for a considerable profit in a year or two.
3. Serhou Guirassy – 25 goals
It’s amazing that relatively lesser-known name Guirassy still features in the upper echelons of Europe’s top goalscorers, given that he spent a decent chunk of the season unavailable for Stuttgart, due to a mixture of injuries and going away for AFCON.
The 27-year-old Guinea international averaged a goal every other game in the German top flight last term and he’s bettered that ratio in 2023-24 with 25 goals in just 26 games, notching in the vast majority of his starts this season.
Stuttgart look dead certs to qualify for the Champions League, finishing ahead of Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig. They might even pip Bayern to second. It’s been a remarkable season and there’s no questioning their star man.
READ NEXT: The highest-paid XI in European football in 2023-24: De Jong, Kane, Mbappe…
2. Kylian Mbappe – 26 goals
Having registered a respectable average of 24 league goals a season for PSG since arriving from Monaco back in 2017, Mbappe has surprisingly only broken the 30-goal mark once (33 back in 2018-19) and is yet to claim a European Golden Shoe.
Now that Messi and Neymar have left, this season is Mbappe’s first (and last) in which he’s undoubtedly the main man at the Parc des Princes.
It looked as though this might be his best season yet, but having announced his intention to leave at the end of the season, Luis Enrique has started looking to the future and benching his star man for league games.
Mbappe scored a hat-trick in a recent outing against Montpellier, but it’s difficult to see him catching the frontrunner if he’s in and out of the team for the remainder of the Ligue 1 campaign. It’s all about the Champions League from here on out.
1. Harry Kane – 35 goals
It was only a couple of years back that Robert Lewandowski broke Gerd Muller’s long-held record of 40 league goals in a Bundesliga season, but Kane still has a chance of beating that.
He’s already scored four hat-tricks and notched a further eight assists to boot, hitting an outrageous tally of 35 goals from just 31 games.
You’ve heard all those jokes about Kane being cursed and continuing to go trophyless, but Kane could scarcely be doing more in the Bundesliga. It’s not his fault that Bayer Leverkusen have emerged from nowhere to boast one of the all-time great seasons.
